


The Full Moon Was Mere Coincidence

by The_Muse



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Braeden is an emissary NOT a mercenary, Derek Hale deserves nice things like a family that loves him, Derek and Malia bond, Desert Wolf DID NOT cause the accident but she’s still evil, F/M, Henry Tate is a GOOD DAD, Henry Tate isn’t just window dressing for a plot device, M/M, Malia being a mature teenager is explained, Malia’s normal mental growth is explained, No Kate Argent, Peter Hale is a shit dad, Werecoyotes and Werewolves are DIFFERENT, Werecoyotes lore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-19 14:30:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16536386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Muse/pseuds/The_Muse
Summary: Malia didn’t deserve to walk on two legs, she didnt deserve clothes or a loving father who cared about her enough not to hover. Malia deserved to be on four legs, covered in fur, she preferred it that way which was why she’d punched the freckled kid hard in the jaw. How dare he and his stupid little wolf friend change her? To take her choices from her like she didn’t know any better?Malia needs to be the way that she was its the only way that she can handle living with what she had done. As a coyote she doesn’t dream, hasn’t in eight long years but as a human all she can see is herself shifted and killing her mother and sister, tasting their blood of their flesh coming off in pulpy pieces-She needs to be the way that she was.





	1. Eichen House and Stiles

“I said it makes me feel sick to my stomach.” Malia swallows thickly, her eyes lock with the freckled kid she’d punched in the jaw earlier before she places her attention elsewhere, anywhere but to look at him. 

The therapist continues talking and now its another kids turn to talk but Malia could care less about group or what anyone else has to say. What does it matter? Their problems have nothing to do with her or what she’d been through of how much she hates looking just like them and how bare she feels in her clothes. Malia is always cold and misses her fur so keenly in moments like this, the entire building is always freezing cold. She crosses her arms more tightly about her, notices the freckled kids eyes on her chest and scowls until he looks away.

* * *

 

His name is Stiles and making him a nervous wreck is entertaining though incidental, she really hadn’t meant for him to catch her in the shower in the boys locker room but it happened and she thinks its the most hilarious thing to see him try his hardest not to look at her. Malia isn’t ashamed of being naked, why would she be? But she is freezing cold and wishes that she could get warmed up and notices the way Stiles’ eyes linger on her bare breasts and its funny to see him so confused and exhausted and aroused. Humans are funny and Stiles is funny until he says the wrong thing. 

“I was kinda wondering why you punched me.”

Malia fights the urge to punch him again all of her earlier amusement gone in a matter of seconds.

“Did you think I was gonna thank you?”

“No...maybe.” He starts then stops awkward, his hands coming together, a nervous tick before he looks up a little defiantly. “We did kinda save your life.”

Saved Malia’s life? Stiles and his stupid little friend didn’t save her life they created for Malia an impossible situation. It was hard on her father before, to be without Malia and her mother and sister but the wound wasnt so fresh anymore, it wasnt opened and bleeding in the beginning years. Now? Well now when and how Malia figured out how to be the way that she was when she left? He might never recover.

“You’re right, Stiles, thank you.” Malia doesn’t blink, refuses to give Stiles the excuse to look away from her when she speaks, her tone is as mocking as she can make it. “Thanks for invading my home, for putting me on the run. For turning me back to human so that I could look at my father everyday and try to figure out how to explain to him that the reason my sister and mother are dead is because I almost ate them on the full moon. Thank you so very much.”

She watches as his expression darkens, the guilt settling on his face the moment the horror of what he and his friend had done crosses his eyes. They hadn’t thought about what Malia would have wanted, hadn’t realized what it must have meant to her to go back to being human when she’d been nothing but an animal for eight years living with her own guilt. What it must have meant to go back to being human to looking at her father and wishing so much that the night her mother and sister died had never happened and how Malia could change nothing could do nothing but live with the man whose life she ruined.

”We were just trying to help.” Stiles says pathetically and Malia’s distaste for him intensifies, his childish excuse. Trying to help? They weren’t trying to help they were playing hero and Malia and her father were the ones screwed.

”You wanna help-” Malia bites back and lets her words die. She might have said something stupid like _find a way to change me back_ but what would the point of that had been? What could this kid and his friend possibly know? Did she want to involve herself with the kind of people that would, in the end, just try to persuade her to stay human? How was that any better?

She walks away from Stiles and goes back towards the lined lockers for her clothes to change in. She could care less that he’d followed, awkwardly behind her, that he was trying to make excuses as he looked anywhere but at her. She’d noticed it, something was off about his scent and decided that the best way to get Stiles off her back and away from her demons would be, to maybe help him fight his own. 

Just to get him to back off of course, it wasn’t like she liked hi and so Malia helps Stiles, she steals the keys, finds him when he’s too doped up to move and they manage to find...something in a wall in the basement. It makes Malia wonder what’s really going on and she was honest when she said that she wouldn’t judge him. In order to judge someone Malia might have to give a damn about whatever it is that he’s going through and she doesn’t. Malia’s main preoccupation is on herself and trying to get...better for her fathers sake like she promised and then getting out of Eichen. Getting Stiles out of her hair first and foremost seems like the best way to go about it.

* * *

“What was that?” Malia moves her upper body back and away from Stiles, her lips tingling strangely as she stares at Stiles with curious eyes. “You kissed me.”

”I...might have read this wrong.” He says moving a few inches away from her on the gross moldering sofa. “Was that your first kiss?”

”No,” Malia says straight faced and annoyed. “I had plenty of kisses with my snout and sharp teeth. Of course that was my first kiss.”

”I am just making you hate me more and more.”

”It’s like you have a special talent for it.” Malia rolls her eyes and shuts down anything else Stiles might want to say. The kiss wasn’t terrible Malia just wishes that it had never happened, this bit of human normalcy that she never wanted to experience and knew she never would again once she was able to change her shape permanently again. “Don’t do it again.”

”Yeah wasn’t planning to.”

* * *

Malia almost dies, is saved by Stiles or whatever it is possessing Stiles body and in a few hours Malia sees Stiles leave and has never been happier in a place like Eichen. So that Oliver kid is dead what did it matter its not like Malia did it. She settles into her regular corner in the commune and stares out the window wondering what sort of thing she can make up for group and happy that everything was going to go back to being wonderfully boring and normal.


	2. Cool kids table? No thanks.

Malia hates school, even before when she’d been in elementary school she’d hated it. There had been times when Malia was a kid that she’d been envious of her cousins from Florida who were in home school. Home school, to Malia sounded like freedom and being in her pajamas all day, of never being called to go to the board where you had to write down answers and pray that you didn’t get it wrong, of never having to raise her hand and ask permission to go to the bathroom to pee.

”Are you sure I can’t just be homeschooled?” Malia leans back again the passenger seat and pulls on the sleeve of her dads old varsity jacket feelings self conscious as she peers at the intimidating white and blue building of the high school. She’d just talked to Freddie in Florida the night before on something called Skype and he’d listened intently to her worries and had mentioned that maybe home school might not be a bad idea.

_’I mean if it ends up horribly for you why the hell not.’_

“I told you Lia, I don’t have the time to take off from work.” Her dad pulls the car to a stall and peers down at her, his expression turns neutral. “Besides, your therapist says that you need to be around other kids your age.”

Other kids Malia’s age? Like any of them would or could understand her at all Malia wasn’t like them. Or maybe it was a certain group of kids her therapist meant, the woman hadn’t exactly hidden the fact that she knew what Malia was or what Stiles was going through or about stupid Scott McCall, whom the kind doctor kept mentioning would help ground her.

As if.

”What if they don’t like me?” Malia’s hand stalls on the handle as she tries to sound as pathetic as she can. Maybe take a day off from the inevitability of school.

”Impossible.” Her dad grins and gives her a loud smack of a kiss on the crown of her head. “Now, go out there and learn and if anyone messes with you-“

”Tell a teacher?”

”I was gonna say kick their ass but telling a teacher is good too.”

This is the dad that Malia is familiarizing herself with. She remembers how he would joke like this how care free and loose and funny he’d been, the perfect foil against her strict mother who would roll her eyes at him and scold him. He was missing that foil now and Malia could see him break open only to close himself off again but at least he’d thrown out the beer. The cigarettes were annoying but he wasn’t drinking anymore and she counted that as a win.

”If I get sent home for fighting I’m blaming you.”

His wide grin makes something settle in Malia’s chest. Maybe, if she cant be a coyote again, they would be okay.

* * *

 ”That is...an incredibly big jacket.” The voice is soft, feminine and dripping with judgement. “Old to.”

Malia doesn’t even turn around to face the girl in question though she can feel the two others with her and through the small magnetic mirror her dad had given her for decoration, she can see the tall one with brown hair galre at the rehead and the other girl, a small Asian with beautiful black pigtails, flush beat red. 

The redhead was being judgmental then? Makes sense with her strange pout and narrowed eyes that lock in on Malia’s. Maybe she was trying to get a rise out of her or maybe it was just an excuse to start a conversation. Malia didn’t care about either option or the girls behind her, it wasn’t like they could block her in.

She slams her locker shut and shoulders her moms old army green backpack, she feels woefully underdressed in a pair of old loose overalls and a white t-shirt, she scuffs her converse sneakers as she glares at the three who’d thought to disturb her.

”It is old, it was my dads.” Malia says to the red head, eyes unblinking. “You got a problem with that?”

”No, its just-“

“Sorry.” The tall brunette at the redheads side elbows the redhead and gives Malia an apologetic look. “Lydia doesn’t mean to be rude-“

”She does,” Malia says looking between the three girls her eyes lingering on the silent pretty one before meeting the tall girls eyes. “she must not be used to people either ignoring her or telling her off.”

”Is this you telling me off?” The redhead-Lydia asks, eyes narrowing in consideration like whatever out of Malia’s mouth next would make or break her perception of her.

”Obviously this is me telling you to get fucked.” Malia pulls her schedule out of her pocket and walks passed the gobsmacked trio down the hall. She ignores the looks that she receives from the other students some just as gobsmacked by what she’d said than the three that she left behind.

“Dude,” Malia stops at the familiar voice behind her and feels a growl begin to rumble through her before she’s able to hold it back. Of course he would be here they were the same age. “Did you just tell Lydia to get fucked?”

He couldn’t have died or something?

“Yes, Stiles. I just told that rude girl who was judging me to get fucked.” She doesn’t even turn around she just starts walking in the the direction she hopes is first period English and she ignores him when he follows silently at her side and doesn’t even bite him, though she wants to, when he snatches her schedule out of her hands and directs her to the right room.

”Are you going to thank me?” He’s being cheeky staring down at Malia like he’s won something. The bags under his eyes are deep and theres something off about his scent still though progressively less wrong than it was in Eichen House. So not possessed anymore? Good for him...whatever.

”No.” Malia walks into the room greatful and takes a seat in whatever desk ignoring how Stiles lingers at the opened doorway before walking in the direction they’d come from.

Malia is grateful that she doesn’t share the class with either of the girls or Stiles and comes to the conclusion that maybe this school thing isn’t all that bad.

* * *

In the first year after the accident Malia had been terribly lost, her teeth carefully grasping her sisters baby doll, she had gone running from meadows to grassy planes to thick woods and across freezing streams. She just could not find her way back to the car where her mother and sister had died nor could she find her way back to her house where, in her childlike mind, she thought that maybe her dad might be able to fix her. She’d known that her mother and sister were dead, she’d known that she had killed them but as a coyote she didn’t really feel the pain the way she should have.

Malia had killed her mother and sister. It was a horrible accident. She needed to get home.

But Malia couldn’t find her way home she found herself much further away than she would have liked and somehow Malia had found herself in a town with a strange name smelling animals that looked like people and she had been more afraid than she’d ever been in her life though Malia couldn’t have understood her instincts at the time.

That was when Malia had found the caravan and the other coyotes though she wouldn’t really remember names because they didn’t really use them and it wasn’t that she found them it was the caravan with other coyotes that had found her. A woman, tall and beautiful with dark brown hair had been the first to approach her and when her eyes gleamed brightly and Malia had found herself settled the others followed. There were others like her who didnt look human and the woman had explained that this is how they had chosen to live. 

And so Malia had lived with the caravan and the other coyotes for a long time and they’d even moved closer to Beacon Hills, near the accident, so that Malia could pay tribute. 

 _‘Do you want to see your fathers house?’_ The woman spoke through a rugged face and sharp teeth. _‘We can take you close to the house but not close enough to touch it.’_

And that was how Malia was able to see her father in the eight years she wasn’t human. The caravan was near where she lived, the other coyotes like her were the ones she hunted with, built dens with and played with, the coyotes who looked human taught them the things the young ones, fury or not, would have learned in school and things about life and its a good thing too. Malia would have never been able to go to high school had she never been taught the things she’d needed to learn.

”It would have been impossible.” She whispers to herself as she underlines important places in her text book to go over later. Everything is still confusing, she is not a great student or a particularly good one but she can pass if she tries, she knows that.

Malia wonders if the caravan is still there, she’s afraid to check the woods afraid that they’ll be all gone. If they’re gone then who would teach her how to change her shape? There would be no one she would be stuck.

* * *

“We should start over again.” Lydia corners Malia on her way to lunch, taps her heels shoe impatiently waiting for Malia to reply. “Stiles says that he met you in Eichen House, that you helped him. He told us that you wanted to know how to change back and that we should help you, knowing what you are and what you’ve been through, I can understand how frustrated you must feel with Scott and Stiles but wouldn’t it be beneficial to align yourself with the pack?”

“No.” Malia pushes past Lydia into the cafeteria and gets in line with a few other strangers, observing the things that they do; take tray, grab a plate, point at what you want and don’t want etc. 

Malia isn’t interested in being a part of anyone’s pack she’s never needed one. The caravan was a gathering of coyote that didn’t need to stick together in order to survive. There had been members that came and left often or never came back at all. The caravan had never weakened or faulted and there had been no dangers at all.

”I really think you should reconsider. After all, what would happen if you lost control? Do you even have an anchor?”

“An anchor? What the hell was that?”

Lydia hums as she pays for Malia’s meal and pulls her by the elbow to a far off and empty table looking distastefully at Malia’s meal. “An anchor is something meaningful for a shifter that keeps them human.”

Oh was that all? 

“I don’t need one.” Malia says. “My problem isnt about losing control and shifting its about not losing control.”

”You really want to be a coyote again? Why?”

”That’s really none of your business. You can go sit with your pack now.”

Lydia _tsks_ under her breath but does get up to leave though she does glance at Malia for a second too long before she’s gone. 

 

 


	3. Derek

There is a wolf on her fathers property, which shouldn’t be such a surprise considering the fact that Scott McCall has been zeroing in on Malia every chance he can get, apologizing or talking or asking her point blank to join his pack because safety lay in numbers. Malia isn’t interested in being a part of Scott’s pack but despite her insistence that she was okay Scott wasn’t one to be easily swayed.

The caravan remained near her home, the dens still full with the other coyote and she’d begun to take her lessons. Malia did want to change back but it was hard going, the woman, the elder said it was because Malia was unsure of what she really wanted to be and so on her way home from, yet another failed attempt at changing, Malia smelled an unfamiliar wolf. She followed the scent trail around her property and found that it stopped at the twin French doors that led into her bedroom from the outside. She felt uneasy about this unfamiliar wolf and laid in wait at night for it to show up determined to figure out what its deal was, if it happened to be a part of Scott’s pack just checking her out or a lonely packless wolf which made Malia even more nervous for her father. She’d never had to really fight before and a rabid packers wolf  would be hard to handle on her own.

For one week Malia waited for the wolf to appear and on the seventh night when the moon was gibbous and bright eerie yellow in the dark cloudless night it did appear. The wolf was large and beautiful, the black fur looked smooth and shined under the moon light like silk, its eyes locked on Malia’s as it came through the tree line and shined bright brilliant blue, a familiar hue. The women at the caravan explained what the color blue meant, an innocent life taken and while the stranger wolf’s blue eyes should put Malia on edge there was something almost sad in their brilliance. Maybe he or she had accidentally taken a life, like Malia had, should she really make assumptions.

The massive creature stopped just a foot away from where Malia sat and stared at her evenly. There was a strange sort of silence between them, not an insect or animal made a noise and for the longest moment it felt like it was just the two of them alone in the woods. Of course that wasn’t true if Malia listened hard enough she could hear her fathers even breathing as he sat in front of the TV, like he did every night before Malia would wake him up long enough to send him to bed.

”Why are you here?” Malia asked the wolf, sat straighter, tried to show some sort of authority much to the wolf’s amusement. It huffed a laugh at her. “Oh stop that I want to know why you’ve been stalking my house for the past week.”

Malia doesnt flinch when the wolf begins to change, its body twisting it bones breaking as the wolf becomes a man. It isn’t frightening it fascinating and she wonders if she’d looked just like this when her body had changed either time. The man in front of her is tall, broad and muscled perfection, his blue blazing eyes fade to gray green, his beard is as black as his hair and artfully manicured, he is impossibly and improbably handsome.

”Well?” Malia takes a stand and offers the man her hand and he takes it though theres really no need for the help. He stands up and is considerably taller than Malia, who stands on bare feet on the cold grassy ground staring at a naked werewolf in her backyard.

”Stiles mentioned you a few times,” He begins with a voice that doesn’t match the wolfs tall, dark and handsome visage. “I didnt mean to intrude so much and worry you.”

”You can imagine what I was thinking.”

”I do.” The wolf says. “I’m Derek.”

”Malia.” 

There is stretch of silence between them where they silently scent the frigid air. 

* * *

 

“You’re back.” Malia greets Derek from the opened French doors of her bedroom. Its strange to see Derek as a man breaking through the tree line in clothes instead of as the large black wolf he usually comes to visit her as. Malia was used to feeling envious of Derek the wolf and wishes she could change, to be on all fours running through the woods to hunt.

”I am.”

It had been a week of Derek visiting Malia, as a wolf usually, of silently sitting or laying beside her on the grass as the hours passed in the night. Malia had asked the wolf why he came to her but of course he couldn’t answer, maybe today he might. Malia walks out of her bedroom and shuts the French doors. She settles on the grass along side Derek and waits for him to say something, she knows he will.

”I don’t have a pack.” Derek says breaking the silence.  

Malia waits for Derek to continue but he doesn't and Malia wonders about Scott’s pack and why Derek isn’t in it. He knows Stiles, mentioned him on his first night so she asks him. 

“It’s complicated.”

”Complicated. You’re either in his pack or your not.”

”Well, I guess I’m not.” 

The silence stretches out from there and when Malia wakes up in the morning she’s in bed with Derek’s stupid leather jacket draped on the back of her desk chair.

 Derek’s weird but Malia doesn’t exactly hate his company.


	4. Skip

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just realized that I’ve been writing Eichen House Malia and not Season 4-6 Malia (I prefer Eichen House Malia to Seaons 4-6 Malia who, for some reason, the writers went out of their way to make her dumb. I get that she was just coming back to being human so there should be things she didn’t grasp however if she’d initially been written as a regular if grumpy teenage girl with brains then the writers should have kept her that way.)

 

Malia is angry enough to kill someone when she storms into school. Her father had been a little confused by her mood and had wisely remained silent in the cab of the truck for the twenty five minute ride to school. She’s greatful that her dad hadn’t been at the house the day before when she’d gotten a rather annoying and rude visitor the father of the dimpled faced annoying girl in Scott’s pact.

Malia didn’t need to hear thinly veiled threats about control and keeping herself in check and what would happen if she killed anyone Malia couldnt even partially change her features the way Derek could let alone chomp on anyone or claw their faces off but the man had persisted and persisted with his long run on annoyances until she’d lost her cool to which he’d responded that he would overlook the incident where she’d murdered her little sister and mother that it had been beyond her control before he realized what he’d said.

It didn’t matter if he tried to apologize through the door she’d slammed in his face Malia was done listening to stupid old men with opinions on what she was and what she could or couldn’t (really couldnt) do. Malia was half convinced that she changed for the first time by some sort of fluke and no one in the world would ever understand how it must be like to be her knowing what this fluke had cost her family.

Having it thrown in her face was beyond cruel and stupid and if Malia hated Scott McCall and his pack before she completely detested them now. So when the dimpled faced idiot girl approached Malia after she’d made it inside and towards her locker, well, Malia cannot be blamed for being hostile. The girl had also seemed to know what her father had said judging from the look on her face and the scent of anxiety and guilt wafting from her pale skin. 

“Walk. Away.” Malia said slowly with a voice filled with dark intent. She might not be able to partially change or use most of what Derek assured her was inhumane strength, but she could probably throw a mean human like punch and the girl despite not looking too much like the man who’d come to visit Malia smelled enough like him and had the stupid shape of his stupid eyes.

The dimpled faced girl didn’t argue and smelled even more guilt ridden as she walked passed Malia at a near sprint and McCall, who was standing on the otherside of the hall and nearest the double doors leading outside glared hotly before he followed the girl to where ever she was going to presumably cry in annoyance.

”That wasnt very nice.” Stiles, another idiot that Malia couldn’t stand but for a completely different reason, whispered directly in Malia’s ear. She leaned against her closed locker, not having the oprotunity to open it yet when the dimpled face girl had come upon her, at stared up into Stiles annoyingly big eyes. “Allison was only trying to apologize for her dad. He can be kind of-“

”An Asshole. Her father is an asshole.” 

Stiles’ scent spikes and he laughs with his head thrown back like he agrees with Malia and she really cannot see what Derek sees in him. Sure Derek hadn’t said anything that might have been mistaken for romantic when it came to Stiles but he had mentioned that Stiles was pack. Derek’s pack from before.

_’We never made anything official you know, Stiles was just there.’_ Derek sat cross legged on the cool grass naked and illuminated by the graying moon light from above. _‘There was Isaac, Erica and Boyd and then there was Stiles this sort of packmate who was always there. Even when Erica and Boyd were gone and Isaac had started drifting away Stiles was...hm...’_ He’d cleared his throat. _‘My point is that you can trust Stiles.’_

Begrudgingly Malia would give Stiles the benefit of the doubt since Derek seemed to be the only friend(?) she had though she really really questioned his taste.

”Look,” Malia stops Stiles before he starts to give her a long winded and raving review on Scott and his packmates and how they’re the greatest pack and how Malia should join them. She’s heard enough about Scott to last her a life time but Scott would always be the bastard who ruined her life more than it had been ruined before. “I’m not a werewolf. The full moon has absolutely no effect on me and before you start,” She holds her hand up to shut him up further. “that night was a fluke I didn’t feel some sort of pull from the moon that had me go all, you know? I don’t need a pack, I don’t need to form some sort of weird connection to the only other group of non humans in this school so that I don’t get lonely. Do you hear what I’m saying? I don’t care about Scott or his pack and would love nothing more for them to just leave me alone.”

”Me too?” He looks almost hurt, not like Malia actually cares. “I’m Scott’s pack too.”

” _Pft!_ Sure you are.” Malia lightly shoves him to the side and walks back the way she came too keyed up for class anyway. She tries not to laugh when she hears Stiles weird heartbeat spike or his big feet follow behind her only to nearly trip. 

“What, what does that mean?” Stiles asks her once they’re outside and across the parking lot towards his Jeep and once they’re inside and he’s already driving out of the parking lot he asks her again.

“It’s exactly what it sounds like.” She sends a text to her dad to let him know that she’s skipping out, he isn’t happy but tells her not to do it again. “You might think you’re Scott’s pack but you don’t smell like pack. The tall gangly kid who isn’t supposed to be Scott’s pack is Scott’s pack same with the stupid girl who thought that apologizing for her idiot father was a good idea and the annoying little red head that I vividly fantasize about drowning in a puddle is Scott’s pack. You...don’t smell like you are not like them.”

 “I thought you said you couldn’t shift how can you smell that?”

Malia gives Stiles a look and doesn’t answer. What would she say anyway? Its just a thing that she can do something that only somewhat slightly dimmed once she was on two feet just like her hearing. The strength thing was dismissed greatly unless she concentrated hard enough but her ears worked nearly just as well when she was a coyote just like her nose. Malia might have gone crazy had those senses gone too.

”Anyway, where to?”

”My place.” She meant to say that he was to drop her off but after the thirsty five minute drive in which Stiles took the long way around towards her place, they were both in her room not speaking. 

She’d smelled him in her room when she’d gotten home before her father had put her in Eichen, Stiles and Scott’s scent stinking up the room she and her sister had shared that had been covered in dust and the nearly long lost scent of Kylie and Mom.

”It looks different.” He says sitting awkwardly at Malia’s desk chair. “Looks good.”

”Thanks.”

Kylie’s things had been boxed up, her bed disassembled, mattress wrapped in too much tarp just to trap the bits of lingering scents as possible. The stuffed animals, toychest and kitschy woodland animal figurines and portraits remained though Malia knew that she should find them childish but they had been Kylie’s and the portraits belonged to her mother so they would stay. Now all that remained was a too small child’s dresser, too small night stands, a low plastic bookshelf covered in Gummybear stickers and a ornately decorated twin bed with bright purple sheets. She doesn’t sleep on the bed but in the corner on the small little den she’d made herself. 

Stiles was staring at it.

”I really don’t smell like Scott’s pack, don’t I?”

”You don’t but you do, like maybe you’re not exactly sure you belong there.” Malia shrugs. 

“I just-“

”Stiles. I don’t care how you feel about it. It doesn’t make sense to me either you’re either pack or you’re not just like you either like someone or you don’t. I don’t really get the whole deal about feeling in between, thats weird. You’re weird.”

He shrugs and Malia rolls her eyes.

”Any word on how to change me back yet?”

 


	5. Thursday

“So your friend,”

”Mm?”

Henry starts as soon as Malia has a mouthful of grits and eggs and cant escape. He knows that once Malia starts eating, no matter the situation, she wont run off until she’s done. That’s the one thing about her that hasn’t changed at all.

“You know him, the nudist who likes to sit outside your bedroom window and wax poetic all night under the very romantic night sky?”

“That’s...Derek.” 

“Hale. Yeah I got that.” Henry sees the flush at Malia’s cheeks. Its more that she’s frustrated than embarassed Malia has never done embarrassment. “Glad to see that he’s keeping the tradition alive.”

”Tradition?”

”We live a hop skip and a throw from the Hale’s place and just about every full moon your mother and I have seen...a few full moons.”

Henry remembers the first time he’d met his neighbors, the Hale’s, the first full moon since he and Evelyn had in their rundown ranch house it had been...well...surprising to say the least, poor Evelyn could not make heads or tails of where to put her eyes when Talia Hale, then, a spunky spitefire of a girl naked as the day she was born with a baby on her hip, had laughed.

 _’Oh geez, I’d forgotten that we had neighbors now.’_ Talia had not sounded sorry at all, if anything she was greatly amused by poor Evelyn’s embarrassment. Henry, much like Malia (and how strange was it that she took after him so much all things considering) extended his hand and gave Talia’s a good shake determined not to amuse her greatly by his shock.

Though she laughed anyway like she could smell it on him.

 _’Are those for us?’_ Talia indicated to the Tupperware in Evelyn’s hands and the naked baby girl reached with a whine towards it and Henry watched some of the shock melt from Evelyn’s face to be replaced with longing at the chubby cheeks green eyes baby girl.

_’Just out the oven. Um, rosenmunnar. Hope you like it.’_

Talia invited them back to the house where, thankfully there was a robe thrown over a rocking chair on the porch though Henry remembers seeing the kids running around naked as the day they were born in the yard and some other naked adults and concluded that the family that lived in the preserve (which they now shared with the Tates) were less a weird cult they’d been warned about and more like a friendly tribe of nudists.

“Was the baby Derek?”

”His sister. I remember because after that she always seemed to wander the few miles to ours just for a taste of your moms food.” Henry remembers the first time they’d found the two year old crawling through their doggy door and begging for whatever it was that Evelyn had in the oven. 

That near stroke was almost worth it when Talia Hale came sprinting through the woods towards their backdoor, luckily Henry was sitting on the back porch smoking otherwise Talia might have barreled through breaking the back door.

’You’ve got a funny kid.’ He’d offered the messily dressed woman a beer from the cooler at his feet and watched as Talia took a nervous seat beside him on a rickety lawn chair. She straightened her messy black hair missing twigs. ‘She’s inside with Eve eating.’

’I am so sorry.’

’You look sorrier.’ He side eyed her and laughed. ‘It’s fine.’

Derek didn’t come for a few years after that and by that time little Laura Hale would knock instead of sneak in and was usually dressed as a Girl Scout, pouty bespectacled baby brother with a mop of crazy black curls, grumpily pulled along in an old radioflyer.

”Is there something I should know about you and Derek?”

”No.” Malia rolls her eyes and shoves another mouthful of food with an aggrieved look on her face reminding him of a normal teenager. “He’s my friend.”

”Okay.” He butters his toast and believes her. “Well how about inviting your friend inside for dinner sometime. Thursdays are good I’m home on Thursday.”

”Are you gonna cook?” Malia makes a face. “Because the last time you cooked I was eight and the fire department had to come out and everything smelled like ass forever.”

”Not forever.”

”Dad,” Malia says pointedly.

”I’ll order something.” Henry concedes a little insulted. He can cook, sort of. “Chinese?”

”We can pick up some subs? Get some nachos and chili too?”

”Sure.”

“Derek will come over.” Malia grins, gets up and heads to the stove for some more food. 

“You think so?”

”Food is food and its better if its free, right?”

”Guess so. You got another friend you want to invite.”

“No.” Malia’s mood shifts into something darker.

* * *

 

Derek brings metal rods and thick rope that he tries to get Malia to bend and break after they’ve done their meditation and breathing exercises. In the beginning it had been an annoying chore or so Malia had told herself that it would be boring but it did help to know that other than those in with the caravan Malia had someone closer to home who wanted to help her achieve something.

When Malia brings it up, well, Derek takes it better than she would have at the invitation being thrown at him mid deep breathing.

”He knows?”

”Yeah, he asked if my naked friend could come for dinner Thursday.”

”So he’s angry?”

“No Derek,” Malia crosses her legs as she settles across from him, rolling her eyes. “Apparently you’re holding up your family’s tradition to be as naked as possible when the sun goes down.”

Derek blanches at that but does agree to Thursday dinner and when the day comes he is maybe a little over dressed with a button down and straight black trousers and sensible shoes carrying a few tupperwares of things he’d made himself (Malia was honestly surprised having assumed that since the house was a burned down shack that he was homeless.)

The night goes well, Derek and Malia’s father find themselves on the back porch smoking while Malia sits on the porch steps between them listening to their heartbeats and it reminds her of her mother as Malia begins to envision what it would have been like had her mother and sister been alive of how they would look or sound.

She feels her fathers hand on her head and she leans into the touch.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Tate’s live in or near the preserve right (it appeared so at least but of course it was never touched upon) so here it explains that they did which would have made them neighbors, albeit, far off. Also, I wanted someone to remember the Hale’s and I wanted to incorporate more Henry. There will be some more flashbacks I promise.


	6. The Emmisary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> None of this mercenary nonsense, Braeden is an emissary! I always assumed that she was /meant/ for Scott since Deaton is retired and was Talia’s before we got this mercenary crap that really...didn’t pan through and made her redundant as hell. Sure she’s tough and strong which I loved but she lost the mystery that was her initial appearance.

The woman blows into town on a Sunday night in an old RV, and dragged behind it on a specialized hitch is a motocycle and an old Vista Cruiser with old school wood paneling on the side. She pulls into the preserve and right onto the old Hale property to park like its for public use. Derek is more surprised than annoyed and angry so Malia decides to feel annoyed and angry for him, charging up to the door to the RV and banging so hard the door feels like it rattles.

“Can I help you?”

”This is private property.”

The woman is beautiful with dark smooth skin and wide knowing dark brown eyes as she takes Malia in with a little surprise before taking a second to look at Derek approvingly going back to Malia who clears her throat to gain her attention again.

”A friend told me about this place I didn’t think it would be a problem.” The woman looks annoyed now though not at Malia. “I should have double checked.”

”Its fine.” Derek says from behind Malia. “Well not fine its my family’s property.”

”I can pay.” The woman says. “I don’t know how long I’m gonna be here but I can pay. I was going to go to Boomer’s Park but the trailers there are so close together and its so expensive.”

Boomers Trailer Park was on the otherside of town filled with Tiny Homes, RV’s, Campers and a few double wides and apparently renting a lot there was too over priced for even a short visit. Derek nodded like he understood or like the prices of the lots were well known while some of Malia’s anger went into a low simmer. 

“Braeden Charles.” The woman extends her hand and Derek comes to Malia’s side to shake it offering his own name and Malia’s.

”For siblings you don’t look all that much alike.”

”He’s not my brother.” Malia says. “He’s my friend.”

”Friends then.” She turns to Derek with a somewhat pleading or flirtatious smile and it makes Malia’s stomach turn to see it because this woman is a stranger and maybe its the child in Malia that remembers her mother telling her about being weary of strangers.

”We’ll come back tomorrow to work something out, then.” Malia grabs the sleeve of Derek’s jacket and lightly pulls him back, not hard enough to cause him to move but hard enough to make her point known; it’s time to go.

The woman seems to notice and smiles softly, amused by Malia’s intentions and Derek’s gobsmacked expression as she waves them off. 

“That was rude.” Derek says with no heat behind it, more amused than anything else really as he allows himself to be manhandled back towards the Tate’s house where he knows he’ll be getting the second degree.

He can feel it in the way Malia wont let go of his sleeve and something in him revels in it because that means that someone cares enough about Derek to scold him even if it was over some flirtatious stranger and no fault of his own. The last time he’d been scolded had been Laura, scowling over her breakfast in their tiny New York kitchen, judging him for some older woman he’d brought home the night before.

_Stranger danger, little brother. If you were human you’d have a punch card full of STD’s by now._

“She was rude.” Malia finally released Derek’s sleeve and pushes him towards the French doors of her bedroom with a scowl. “And she’s a stranger,” She says nearly scandalized by that fact alone as Derek humors her by taking a seat at the end of the bed. 

“I was trying to be polite.” He says. “Boomers is expensive and I honestly don’t mind.”

”Liar,” Malia rolls her eyes. “It made you sad when you saw her cars there and even if it was a place that she heard from through some friend it was still rude to just show up.”

True, Derek thinks. Very true.

”I don’t trust her either.” Malia sits in front of Derek, cross legged on the floor staring up at him with her shrewed brown eyes. “There’s something not right.”

”I agree.” Derek says, _if she’s interested in me then theres got to be something wrong with her_ , he says to himself amusered and a little sad at how true it is. “She smelled off.”

”Like dead plants and dust.” Malia agreed with a nod.

The scents had wafted from the opened RV door when Braeden had answered Malia’s banging knocks tickling Malia and Derek’s noses as she spoke, there had also been something hazy about her, like there was something around her barring them from really glancing her in anyway that made her real. 

“I know someone just like that.” Derek nods. “Not bad but not good.”

”Safe?”

”Safe.” 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Canon divergent obviously with Malia Tate not giving up on being a coyote again just because she sleeps with a guy. I never liked that Malia changed her mind so quickly and wanted to explore the part of her that wanted, so much to be a coyote again. She was filled with so much guilt? Why not let her continue to really feel it. Also, coyotes and wolves are not the same species so why would a werecoyote change during the full moon like a werewolf? So I have decided to create a different lore for werecoyotes to differentiate them from wolves. 
> 
> Also, if you were hoping for Stalia (I don’t know why you would be Sterek is in the pairings) then that weird kiss scene where Malia was like what the fuck is the closest you’re going to get with that pairing. Sorry.


End file.
